It was the last few hours before I headed off to the airport, leaving behind roots dug deeper than ever before in my hearts’ adopted home in South Korea. The past three weeks had me walking out the front door of my hotel and turning right towards the subway station. I had a plan and the plan was to the right. That’s where my vision was cast for the day. That final Wednesday morning, though, as I stood outside taking in the view hungry, ready to store it away until next time, I looked to my left and wondered. The clock on my phone read my mind and told me there was time to find out. So, I set sail.
A block down the road I saw some steps leading from the sidewalk up the side of the hill and disappearing over the edge. It almost motioned for me so I stepped one, two, three……..up to the top. I stood and took in the unexpected cool, green, ethereal silence in the middle of the city that wrapped around me. Korea is called the Land of the Morning Calm and I, indeed, had found it. I began to follow the path, carved out to stave off the cement, steel, glass, hissing busses and honking cars just down the hill. Somehow, it had swallowed all of it up and left in its’ wake a haven.
I walked for quite awhile, soothed and thankful for this gift that Korea was sharing with me as we said goodbye for now. Ah, what if I hadn’t turned left, I said into the camera as I filmed it to share with my friends back home. Look what I would have missed! Turned left, I thought. There’s a life lesson in those words. My mind flipped back through the rolodex of moments from the past three weeks, the past 3 trips to Korea. The first inkling of going to Korea at all felt like something that only happened to someone else. I was surprised to consider it might be me and I said yes to it. It changed my life and I called it a “once in a lifetime” trip before I asked the Author of my story what He had in mind.
Today, on the other side of my fourth trip, Korea has taught me to step outside the self imposed boundaries of “no” and look for the yes. Rather than keep my eyes on the tried and true, the “safe” way, she has shown me how to turn left and find life’s surprises. I found my way to the end of the “forest in the city” path and turned around to make my way back to the sidewalk. I thought about all the people I’d encountered, some of them in the brief moments of a serendipitous subway ride together, a tour guide at the temple, sitting in the same pew at church. I noticed, as I looked at the pictures snapped to remember, that many of them have the person quite literally on my left, stopping to talk to someone by themselves.
I stepped back out of the green and onto the gray of the pavement and made my way back towards my hotel, the sounds of the city volume turned up. It was getting close to time to roll my suitcases out to the curb and board the bus on the first leg toward home. I smiled as I walked. The walk in the forest had whispered a reminder to me. When my mind settles into the mundane, the press of hesitancy as the unknown looms, the familiar cadence on the well trod path…..look for the road less traveled…..and turn left.
